Seoul - China maintains its opposition to India joining a group of
nations seeking to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons by controlling
access to sensitive technology, said the head of the arms control department in
China's Foreign Ministry.

The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) met this week in Seoul, but China said it
would not bend the rules and allow India membership as it had not signed the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the main global arms control pact.

"Applicant countries must be signatories of the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT)," Wang Qun, the head of arms control
department in China's Foreign Ministry, was quoted as saying in Seoul on
Thursday night.

"This is a pillar, not something that China set. It is universally recognized
by the international community," Wang said according to a statement released by
the Chinese foreign ministry on Friday.

China is leading opposition to a push by the United States to bring India
into the NSG which aims to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation by stopping the
sale of items that can be used to make nuclear arms.

The issue of India's membership was not formally discussed at the NSG meeting
this week, Wang said on Friday.

The United States, which has a nuclear cooperation deal with India, considers
it a nuclear power that plays by the rules and is not a proliferator, and wants
to bring Asia's third largest economy into the 48-member group.

India already enjoys most of the benefits of membership under a 2008
exemption to NSG rules granted to support its nuclear cooperation deal with
Washington.

On Friday, on the sidelines of the plenary meeting of the NSG, Wang stressed
China considered it important to handle new memberships under a consensus and
that there was no move yet to allow a non-NPT state to join.

"International rules will have to be respected, big or small," Wang told
Reuters. "Big like NPT. Small like the rules and procedures of this group."

"The important question of which we are concerned, is how to deal with the
question of participation of countries within the group of non-NPT states. It's
a formidable task."

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue on Thursday at a meeting
with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a regional summit in Tashkent, Uzbekistan,
but there was no breakthrough.

One diplomat at the NSG plenary in Seoul said the group’s outgoing chairman,
Argentinian diplomat Rafael Grossi, would act as a “facilitator” to continue to
search for an accession deal.

Opponents argue that granting India membership would further undermine
efforts to prevent proliferation. It would also infuriate India's rival
Pakistan, an ally of China's, which has responded to India's membership bid with
one of its own.

Pakistan joining would be unacceptable to many, given its track record. The
father of its nuclear weapons program ran an illicit network for years that sold
nuclear secrets to countries including North Korea and Iran.

(Reporting by James Pearson in Seoul and Michael Martina in Beijing;
Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Michael Perry)